All Hallows Eve, 1981
by rockinfaerie
Summary: A young woman is so desperate to save her son, that she will die for him. A young man is desperate to save her, but is willing to kill her son, or so he thinks...


Disclaimer: I'm not JK Rowling, so anything you recognise is most definitely hers. This is my take on things, that's all.

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**All Hallows Eve, 1981**

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**Part One**

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His voice rose in panic and ignored the dissenting shakes of her head as he told her to run. Then he embraced her with a frightening degree of urgency, his strong arms grasping her tightly as his last kiss burned into her soul. She begged him to do otherwise, but he released her, pushing her firmly away from him, and his hazel eyes, which shone with betrayal, flickered with a fierce fire that even she had never witnessed as he tore them from their awakening son, and he sprinted from the room, his wand readily drawn.

And yet, out of habit, he closed the heavy oak door very softly behind him, so as not to startle the baby.

Thunder roared in the black night sky of Godric's Hollow like the terror that surged through her as she stared after her husband. She gripped the side of the wooden cot next to her as she looked at the empty space where he had been moments before, hot tears streaming down her face to the quiet whimpering inside it. The one-year-old, sleepily objecting to this unwelcome disturbance of his slumber, had raised himself upright, also holding onto his cot for support.

Her eyes adapting to the darkness and forcing her recently awoken mind to a state of alertness, she lifted her son out, his little feet swinging against her hips as she settled his head against her shoulder. Rain lashed the rattling window-panes as she grabbed a blanket from the chair and wrapped it around him, accompanying his more frequent cries with desperate hushing.

Swaying him slightly in one arm, she grasped her wand with the other, and pointed it away from them and towards the external wall. From it, in a brilliant burst of light which illuminated their entire bedroom, bounded her Patronus, and, its silvery hooves clashing silently with the floor, it turned and raced past her and through the wall, into the main part of the cottage.

The room was pitch-dark again, and her quick, agitated breaths slowed in her dry, parted mouth; she knew that in a moment, Dumbledore would receive her message and arrive there, to help them, to save them. Hope swelling in her chest, she watched the closed door, at every second expecting to see him come through it, her husband at his side, having averted the danger once more.

But the door remained closed. As the minutes passed, the hope dwindled, and Harry's cries grew louder. Opposite her, their mahogany dressing table, barely discernable in the shadows, was illuminated by a garish flash of lightning, and in its ovular mirror she saw herself; her terrified face devoid of colour and clutching her small, crying boy in her arms. But with a loud crash from the main part of the cottage he fell silent, and Lily, her heart pounding next to his, closed her eyes and gently leaned her cheek against her son's soft, black curls.

Thunder roared above them, and his cries recommenced as more violent crashes followed, echoing through the house, and she realised that her son, pressing his head resolutely into her shoulder and clinging to her night-robes, was equally frightened. She held him tighter, returning to her hushing – which now, with tears flowing down her cheeks, was not just intended for the baby. The conclusion was arrived at; Dumbledore was not coming, and James was fighting alone.

She now remained there against sense, standing by the promise she had made to him only a few years before in an ancient, near-empty cathedral. But she could not fight alongside him as she had before. He battled the tyrant with nothing to urge him or aide him but the thought of protecting his family. His declaration that he would "fight him off" had been nothing but a vain attempt to placate her, something they had both known. He had asked her to run, but it was a request she could not grant him – she dwelled in desperate hope on the slightest chance of his return, and had stayed, unable to part with him, straining her ears for any clue of his quick footsteps running down the narrow hallway towards their bedroom.

The little boy began to cry loudly again, and Lily bounced him up and down steadily in her arms. When she opened her eyes the room was adorned with the glare of another burst of lightning, and she saw his colourful wooden blocks, scattered about on the thick rug by the bed, where they had all played together that evening. She remembered laughing at his endeavours; he had handed each block to James in a most generous fashion, whose attempts to build a tower with them had been each time happily thwarted by his son, before he eventually climbed into her lap to go to sleep.

A few hours ago, and yet it seemed an entire world away.

The storm raged out on the moor as she thought hatefully of Peter. He was the man they had trusted with that most precious to them – their son's life. The man no-one, including Dumbledore, had suspected of treachery in any form. His smiling, comforting relationship with them, in the past year, had been a lie. He had selfishly done the exact opposite of what was asked of him, which could only have been the result of hatred or total indifference towards each one of them, including Harry.

She could not bear to think of him further, but with each violent sound that issued through the thick walls she was reminded of him with the stabbing pain of betrayal. Leaning against the cold wall, and the little boy burying his own tears into her dark red hair, she willed James to come back to them.

On a frozen morning in December, when, at the age of nineteen, she discovered that she would become a mother, they had both known that theirs was a world unwelcome for a child. It was one of brutality and distrust, where torture, murders and vanishings were far more common than smiling; a world rapidly being contaminated by a terrible and merciless evil.

Her anxiety and fear had increased with the swelling of her midriff, but as the months passed, these feelings had often been punctuated by a curious mixture of wonder and delight whenever she felt light kicks against her ribcage.

And when, one summer's night during a similar lightning storm, their son's newborn cries had filled their bedroom, loudly announcing his presence to this hostile world, neither had thought of the dangerous conflict they were both so heavily involved in. In a single moment, all their concerns had melted away, save one: protecting this tiny little boy. Never would she forget the intense emotion that had overwhelmed them both the moment they had seen him, nor the somewhat bewildered expression on her husband's face when he cautiously took the new baby from her and into his arms, fascinated by the minute size of his hands and feet, and had declared, in an awed whisper – and without looking up from them – that their son had her eyes.

Feeling tired, but strangely the happiest she had ever felt, she had smiled as she watched her young family, bathed in the sunlit aftermath of the storm, and had marvelled at the continued existence, in this dark and furious world, of something as pure and innocent as love.

In those first exhausting weeks, James had stayed awake beside her each night, watching Harry intently as he slept peacefully in his cot, and she grew used to his warm weight in her arms as she fed him, his little hand pressed against her, and his identical eyes looking up at hers with the same contentment.

Though they had known him to be in potential danger, they had not allowed it to affect their relationship with him; in their cottage they created a world of their own, one of security and happiness, and far removed from the one they had lived in for too long. Godric's Hollow was the only place Harry had ever known, with its large old fireplaces that crackled to life in cold weather, and the wide black stove in the kitchen that instinctively knew which food to prepare for them. Purple heather grew serenely on the windy, rising land around them, interrupted in parts by the flat grey rocks, which she and James had jumped to and from when he had brought her there first; laughing, kissing, pushing each other onto the wet, marshy earth. It was their home; the only place she had ever felt properly safe, and not because of ancient charms or spells, but because they were all together, all under one roof.

And Voldemort was destroying it.

With each burst of sound that echoed through the cold cottage her heart trembled; she heard walls beyond their room crumble, and a faint smell in the air told her something had ignited. But she knew he was still alive – she would feel it if he wasn't – and while this lasted, she was compelled to stay, knowing that he could still escape. Tremendous frustration built up inside her as she stood there, unable to help him. The one thing stopping her from drawing her wand again and running out to James was Harry. She would do anything for her husband, except leave her son defenceless; a mutual, if unspoken, agreement between them.

He had begun whimpering again, his eyes closed and small fists clamped around her robes. Her throat far too obstructed to sing, she smoothed his black hair away from his forehead and kissed it gently, a shaky hush sounding through her chattering teeth. But his cries grew louder, and she gathered the blanket around him again, warming his cold feet with her hands, vaguely noticing that her own had become numb.

Bare wintry branches scraped the window viciously, and the crashes became more persistent, like the thundering growls overhead and snapping flashes of light. Every part of her ached for her husband, and she kept her vision on the oak door, the door he had closed so quietly when he had left them. She still felt the imprints his hands had made around her waist and the remnants of his kiss on her lips.

Thunder knelled overhead and a sob escaped her; it was the first full sound she had made since he had left the room.

She knew, in the depths of her soul, of his complete departure, even before the triumphant cackles of barbaric laughter emanated from the main part of the cottage. Harry had known also, for he had shuddered in her arms when she felt his father being snatched from them. The wind howled across the moor, giving voice to the pain inside her, pain she didn't know was possible to experience; her insides had been savaged, emptied of hope and filled with despair, which gave rise to a ferocious anger, a desperate wish to exact horrible revenge on the monster who would remorselessly slaughter them all.

The only person who had ever known her for who she was; the only person she had unceasingly trusted; the only person to have given her true happiness in a land of sorrow and judgment; her husband, the love of her life.

Gone.

Tears flowing freely down her face, and her whole heart torn by grief, she gently pried her son's hands away from her night-robes, ignoring his protests and attempts to regain his grip. Shaking her head, unable to utter an apology, she placed him back inside the protective confines of his cot.

His tear-filled, almond-shaped eyes reflected hers perfectly as he stood upright and raised his arms, pleading to be picked up again. She leaned forwards and kissed him repetitively on his forehead, and for the last time smoothed her hand through his hair as long, dreadful, determined strides resounded at the far end of the passageway beyond the oak door. As she crossed the room, she heard his cries, begging her not to leave, just as she had done not an hour before.

She shook her head again, gazing at her son, and felt the fire blaze up inside her, the same fire she had seen flicker in James' eyes.

She would not let him be taken also.

And without allowing for further hesitation, she tore her eyes from her son, stumbling through the door, and shut it quietly behind her.

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**Leave a review to let me know what you think. Part Two should be up shortly.**


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